1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to verifying identity with individual kinetics-based biometrics, and to profiling groups and individuals using the same technology.
2. Description of Related Art
Individual people may be recognized—and their identity verified—by a wide variety of methods at this writing. Government-issued credentials containing photographic identification are ubiquitous, and many biometric approaches for identifying individuals, not limited to fingerprints and retinal scans, are already known. Authorship technologies are available which determine the author of a writing based on stylometrics in the writing itself. More traditionally, and even in literature, certain biometrics were known for identity verification. For example, in The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, a passage reads, “He entered the apartment followed by a man in a mask,” and “[h]e was masked likewise; but I knew his step, I knew his voice, I knew him by that imposing bearing which hell has bestowed upon his person for the curse of humanity.” In every day life, as well as in literature, people are frequently recognized by their voices, and by the sound of the way they walk, in addition to the way they look considered in a static fashion. In other words, sonic identity of voice or step is dynamic, and viewed within a time frame, but up until the present invention visual identification of a person has typically been accomplished in a static paradigm, with comparison of the subject with a still photograph, a static retinal scan, or an archived fingerprint taken at a single moment in time. To the inventors' knowledge, heretofore the technology has not existed to identify or to verify (or to profile) one or more individuals primarily or solely by their dynamic visuals or kinetics, that is, the kinetics or appearance of motion of the body and body parts including but not limited to the face, legs, arms and torso. Also to the inventors' knowledge, no one heretofore has even recognized the importance of the need to be able to identify and verify one or more individuals by their visible or kinetic characteristics in a dynamic system. For example, modern imaging including but not limited to satellite photography makes it much more feasible to assess dynamic visual images at a great distance, whereas sounds (“his step . . . his voice”) can be heard only within much shorter ranges. A need therefore remains for a kinetic-based tool for identification in which the way a person moves becomes as much a verification technology of who he or she is as would a fingerprint, retinal scan or authorship stylometric.